Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Climate Superfund Act, but most agree that this is just the beginning of a long process before it goes into effect. The state Legislature still needs to vote on the chapter amendment sought by the governor, and the bill is widely expected to face legal challenges.
State Sen. Liz Krueger, the bill’s sponsor, said the fund created and the $3 billion that fossil fuel companies would have to pay into the fund annually over 25 years would help the state pay for climate change-related costs. The aim is to reduce the taxpayer.
“Why do we need to know the full extent of the damage?” she said. “Right now, you and I and 19.5 million other New Yorkers are paying for those costs ourselves, and we can’t escape them.”
The concept of “making polluters pay,” as proponents say, is an idea the governor recently endorsed by signing.
“This bill, modeled in part on the successful federal Superfund program, holds polluters accountable for the harm they knowingly cause,” she wrote in her approval memo.
Mr. Hochul waited until the last minute to act on the bill, giving it his stamp of approval after three-way negotiations that Mr. Krueger said largely depended on logistics.
This was meant to give the state Department of Environmental Protection time to implement and address transparency issues regarding the use of funds.
“We agreed to make the changes to reflect their legitimate concerns about how this would operate,” she said.
State Sen. Tom O’Mara, who serves on the Energy Committee, is among the critics of the concept of punishing New York companies for legal actions.
“These were services provided to the public, and there was a great public need at the time. What was our alternative?” he said.
Krueger dismissed such concerns, citing similar federal Superfund laws and similar unsuccessful challenges to the measure, as well as the fact that General Electric Co., after decades of PCB dumping, He cited the mandatory dredging of the area.
“Especially in the environmental field, if we know something harmful is happening, we can hold polluters accountable,” she says. “It’s not even a question of, ‘Are we doing something illegal?’ You may not have been, but we know that the consequences of these activities are the enormous environmental damage that we have to deal with. I learned that.”
The law faced fierce opposition from the business community, with dozens of business groups urging Hochul to veto it. Rep. Phil Palmesano, ranking member of the Energy Committee, expressed similar concerns.
“We are now giving the very agency that approved these operating licenses (the Department of Environmental Conservation) the power to penalize, assess and fine these operations,” he said. “This is clearly anti-business and anti-consumer law.”
O’Mara added that he disagrees with proponents’ claims that ratepayers would not feel any impact.
“If you raise costs and impose fees, penalties and taxes, that will be passed on to the consumer,” he says.
Blair Horner, senior policy advisor for NYPIRG, which supported the bill, said the economic expertise sought during the legislative process, including a letter to the governor from Nobel Prize-winning economist and Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz, He said it shows that there is no such thing. He argued that market forces would not prompt prices to go up because some companies would not be charged.
“If they want to raise prices, companies that have no leverage will underbid them. We drivers will end up going to the cheapest gas station, so we could lose market share.” said Horner.
He added that even if this were not the case, taxpayers would still be liable for climate-related damages anyway.
The bill was the subject of persistent support in the legislative session’s final weeks, including significant support from youth groups, even as the governor’s action window closed in December.
“The fossil fuel industry generates trillions of dollars in profits every year,” said Keanu Arpels Josiah, 19, a lead organizer of Fridays for Future New York City. “It’s time for them to pay their fair share in New York. As young people across the state have advocated every year, signing the Climate Action Fund Act is an important step toward that goal.”
What many agree is that all of this is likely to continue to be a topic of debate, as the law is expected to eventually be challenged in court, but for now Kruger He said it’s time to focus on getting the chapter amendment passed and moving towards implementation.
“We are starting to move along the path set out in the law and we will know when and by whom we can sue. But maybe I am wrong and no one will sue and they just agree to pay. I just do it. It’s possible,” she said.
